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The Omega Spirate

clockboy
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clockboy Distinguished Member

clockboy

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Its not very often in horology a truly new concept arrives Omega seem to have achieved it.
 

The Omega Spirate is a new balance spring system that can be adjusted for stiffness to allow fine adiustments of the rate to within 0.1 seconds per day. This is one of the few truly new ideas in horology made possible by silicon manufacturing techniques.

The system was announced in January this year.

However, technical details were sparse, with Omega supplying only basic images of the spring and views of the watch into which it's installed, the new Speedmaster Super Racing. Recently Omega invited the H7 to a technical conference on the Spirate from which this exclusive report has been prepared.

 

The Spirate has at its core a flat balance spring with unusual features, depicted in Figure 1. The body of the spring proper terminates at a flexible flat blade rather than at a more usual stud. The whole arrangement is in turn fixed to a stud by means of the short arm pointing to the right.

The general principle is this: the overall 'stiffness' of this balance spring is a combination of the stiffness of the spiral part and the stiffness of the blade. This overall stiffness directly affects the oscillator's period, (the rate of the watch). By subtly altering the stiffness of that short blade, the watch rate can be adjusted extremely finely.

 

See Pics: 

IMG_9922.jpeg

IMG_9923.jpeg

Edited by clockboy
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